Kentucky comes home with momentum, but Vanderbilt has made a habit of complicating this matchup.
The Commodores are 3-2 against Kentucky under Clark Lea, and two of those wins came at Kroger Field. In each of those games, Vanderbilt was a double-digit underdog. Now comes the 100th all-time meeting between the SEC programs on Saturday night, with Kentucky trying to keep rolling before the bye week and Vanderbilt looking to spoil the party.
Lea’s sixth Vanderbilt team arrives in Lexington on a four-game SEC losing streak, but this group has usually shown up well against the Cats. That history alone makes this a tougher ask than the record might suggest.
Vanderbilt’s offense is in the middle of a reinvention, and the change starts at quarterback.
After a rough 2023 season that left the Commodores buried near the bottom of the country in almost every major offensive category, Lea made a major overhaul. Jerry Kill and offensive coordinator Tim Beck, who built a productive offense at New Mexico State, came aboard and brought Diego Pavia with them.
Beck called the plays, Kill helped run the system, and the offense found a way to adapt. In 20224, Beck leaned on a spread scheme that controlled tempo, slowed games down, protected the defense and moved the ball efficiently.
Then the back half of last season brought a shift, with Pavia emerging as one of the best spread passers in college football in October and November.
That success helped bring another major breakthrough. Nashville native and Georgia commit Jared Curtis flipped to Vanderbilt after last season’s wild ride, and the Commodores paid up to land the five-star quarterback. After a quarterback battle with Blaze Berlowitz stretched into the season, Vanderbilt named Curtis the starter in Week 3.
The true freshman has been a mixed bag. Curtis has completed 62.7 percent of his passes for 1,242 yards, averaging 7.7 yards per attempt.
He has also added 205 non-sack rushing yards, with more than 50 scramble yards in games against NC State and Auburn. In four career starts, he has thrown for more than 270 yards twice and has eight total touchdowns.
But the mistakes have piled up, too. Curtis has thrown two red zone interceptions late in the fourth quarter of one-possession games against NC State and Arkansas, and he has also been charged with seven fumbles.
He has not gotten much help around him. Sedrick Alexander and Makhilyn Young have combined to top 70 rushing yards only once in five Power conference games.
The offensive line is producing just 0.9 yards before contact. Curtis has been hit by 12 drops, and protection has been shaky.
Vanderbilt was an efficiency machine with Pavia, and that edge has disappeared.
The Commodores are still leaning heavily on the passing game, ranking No. 39 nationally in pass play rate at 51.25 percent entering Week 8. Only Arkansas and Ole Miss are higher in the SEC. That volume has made the offense even more dependent on one target.
Junior Sherrill has grown into a true No. 1 receiver and maybe Vanderbilt’s most important player. The Nashville native has 103 career catches and has taken on a bigger role than ever in 2024.
He leads the team in targets with 61, receptions with 41, receiving yards with 628, receiving touchdowns with four, yards per route run at 2.80 and first down catches with 22. No other Vanderbilt player has more than 13 targets, and nobody else has reached 200 receiving yards.
Sherrill is also the team’s kickoff returner, has seen double-digit targets in three games, and has topped 90 receiving yards five times this season. Kentucky will have to account for him from the start. He also burned the Wildcats last season with eight catches for 115 yards, and another day like that could give Vanderbilt real life on Saturday night.
Defensively, the Commodores are built to pressure, even if the results haven’t followed.
Coordinator Steve Gregory, who has an NFL background, brings a deep menu of pressure looks and fronts, and Kentucky quarterback Kenny Minchey and the offensive line should expect plenty of different pictures. Vanderbilt wants to take chances and force the issue.
The problem is that the production has not matched the aggression. The Commodores enter the weekend ranked No. 89 in yards per play, No. 95 in points per drive, No. 99 in third down conversion rate, No. 99 in havoc rate, No. 104 in EPA/play and No. 125 in red zone touchdown percentage. Despite the blitz-heavy feel, they are not generating enough negative plays and have been giving up yards and points in bunches.
Three straight offenses have averaged more than six yards per play against Vanderbilt. NC State, Georgia and Ole Miss each scored more than 30 offensive points against the Commodores.
This is a defense with obvious holes, and opponents in the SEC have found them both on the ground and through the air. Vanderbilt’s style may be aggressive, but the numbers say the unit has been one of the league’s weakest.
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